CORONAVIRUS/COVID-19: [Reporter: “You’ve been saying, sir, and you just said now that we’re turning the corner [on coronavirus]. How do you say that, given that 200,000 people have died?”]
“‘Have died.’ And projected — if you look at the initial projections, it was up to 240, 250 thousand if everybody did their job. If they didn’t do their job, it would be two and a half, three million people, three and a half million people. But you saw the same chart.
So here’s the bottom line: We should’ve lost nobody. China should’ve never allowed it to come out. Should’ve never, ever allowed it to come out. But the projections would be — if we did a really good job, with the shutdown, which we did, it would be 240 — up to 240, 250 thousand people. You’ve seen those numbers, and so have I. If we didn’t do our job, it would three and a half, two and a half, maybe three million people — million people.
We have done a phenomenal job with respect to COVID-19. We have done a job that was incredible…
We’ve done a great job… We have done an incredible job. Throughout the world, I get called by prime ministers and presidents saying, ‘Sir, the job you’ve done is amazing.'”
-Donald Trump, “Remarks by President Trump Before Marine One Departure” whitehouse.gov, Sep. 18, 2020